Serena Hotel Roundup: Diverse Safari Accommodations

Every giraffe is stately, every baby elephant adorable and the leopards and cheetahs are elusive in Kenya.

Overnight accommodations for people on safari, however, vary widely.

I stayed in luxury in resorts that call themselves camps or safari lodges and also in a city hotel, all operating under the banner of the Serena Hotels chain as part of my trekking. Their art, architecture and personality emerge as distinctively different as the wild animals are from one another.

Seems how we sleep, eat and relax between game drives is filled with wonder just like the sightings of an impala or lion or zebra.

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Simple wooden sign with three horizontal boards declaring Sweetwaters Serena Camp at Latitude 00 degrees 00 feet at the Equator. — All the Serena camps and lodges post location signs at the roundabouts in arrival areas. Being on the equator feels particularly striking. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

What to Expect at Serena Properties

Spa Services are superb, described in “best ever anywhere” terms by my traveling colleagues, and me. The challenge is finding time for appointments because game drives can start early and go late.

Meals at Serena properties are mostly buffets with international choices including Asian and Indian. Expect luscious fresh fruits and juices, eggs and pasta cooked to specifications, and multiple bite-sized desserts.The iconic Kenyan staple named ugali, made of maize or flour, and water or milk, and intended more to sustain than delight, pays homage on many buffet spreads to indigenous history.
Wi-fi is included, but sometimes spotty. Once registered, always registered, re-upping automatically as entering another Serena property. iPhone and AT&T service sometimes failed to reopen but the front desk staff always knew a way to overcome that glitch.
Gift shops deserve attention, whether shopping or not, because they’re cultural lessons. Each of the five I visited presented a slightly different vibe. Already knowing the textiles, jewelry, carvings and images of Kenya is immensely helpful when encountering very insistent street vendors.
Most accommodations are much more than tents. Even the ones that are canvas outside come with floors, walls, flush toilets and hot showers.
In Kenya there are seven Serena properties, with eight in neighboring Tanzania and one in Uganda. The owner is a Swiss entity named the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, with 35 properties including in Asia.

SheBuysTravel Tip: Discuss your budget with your safari guide company way in advance because options abound. Capture Kenya Expeditions and Uplift Travel Foundation knew what my group of 11 had in mind and they chose accordingly.

Serena Hotel Choices

Here’s a look at my experiences, some only one night, sometimes lasting two. Copious amounts of mosquito netting engulfed beds in the camps and lodges.

Gauzy mosquito netting surrounds a bed completely, wrapping around and above the four posters. Daylight shines through in a room with a lake view. — Mosquito netting seen from the inside out is important to consider before heading out on safari. It really feels like an enclosure, and finding the separation panels for bathroom calls can incite a bit of panic. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge

Reddish-pink building with rounded top and smooth walls is flanked with sharp pointed long sticks above head-level. The lodging huts are surrounded with lush trees and gardens/ — Amboseli buildings reflect Maasai village architecture, something which becomes clearer as a Kenya safari unfolds. The pointed sticks at ceiling level reflect cattle pens in the center of traditional Maasai villages. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

This is the place to say “I’ve seen Mount Kilimanjaro.” Look toward Tanzania and hope the clouds separate. Didn’t happen for me.

Amboseli is the park known clearly for its abundance of elephants so if seeing these majestic creatures is your No. 1 safari goal, make the drive southeast of Nairobi.

On Kenya highways, those 200 or so miles can be a “catch-your-breath” experience as Kenyan drivers pass industrial trucks and regularly turn the two lanes into four, with motorbikes veering on the shoulders.

Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge has 92 rooms and one suite. The swimming pool is heated, worth noting because some of the other hotel pools offer only icy cold water.

A short wooden bridge crosses through a lush garden to enter the dining room. The maitre d’ or wine steward is dressed in traditional Massai shuka—-a blanket-type cloth fastened over his shoulders.

Dark wood walkway with split-rail support beams opens to a glimpse of the reddish-pink smooth-walled lodging buildingsand to dense forest and garden with green bushes amidst big boulders. — The wooden walkway into the Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge dining room crosses a lush garden, looking toward the larger vista of the game park. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Sweetwaters Serena Camp

Sometimes lodging called a tent actually looks like one…. but the ensuite bathroom with all the amenities surely is more comfortable than what I knew as a Girl Scout.

Sweetwaters Serena Camp – with 56 tents – sits right on the equator. Book one overlooking the water because Cape buffalo stop by to drink, and so do lots of zebra (which in a group are called a dazzle).

Walking between tents, and to the dining room, is possible on a stone sidewalk, where friendly Kenya staff always offer greetings and birds with feathers of spectacular colors flit around. Walking in the grass on the water side opens more animal viewing options.

Khaki-yellow tent roof and flaps open to double bed with crisp white sheet. Pillows and coverlet are stripes and diamond shapes in turquoise, red and purple. The sink and mirror are visible with the toilet and shower off to each side. A roof of thatch and sticks covers the tent canvas and extends to the sides. — Sweetwaters Serena Camp offers double or twin beds in a tent with a floor, back porch with a view, hot water shower, flush toilet, sink with ample counter space and all the amenity products. Flaps on both sides open to screened windows for cross breezes. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

SheBuysTravel Tip: This camp of 50 acres is within the 110,000-acre Ol Pejeta Conservancy where there are enough special activities beyond the always-wonderful game drives to stay fascinated a week or more. Most are $70 per person – but where else would travelers meet the last two northern white rhinos in the world, and learn about multi-national in vitro efforts to hope to birth more?

Clouds dot the blue-gray sky and slender green trees stretch taller than the thatch roofs covering spacious lodging tents. Two canvas folding chairs and a small table fill the back porch. — All-natural is the mood at Sweetwaters Serena Camp where the roof covering lodging tents allows window opening even in rainy season. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp

When the lake on the lush green property where you just checked in for the night has a moat separating the back lawn from the water, assume those boulders are hippos.

Individual lodging buildings, staggered for privacy, and each with a covered back porch, included a four-page birds checklist. That seemed like a safer endeavor than lake wading with hippos.

Whispy branches of tall slender trees filter blue sky above a lake. Tall grasses and short shrubs fill the land at the water's edge and a stretch of brown dirt suggests a moat. — The view from the dining room–an open air patio facing an expansive lawn–at Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp leads to a moat not to be crossed. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp offers lots of activities, including yoga, watercolor painting, Swahili language classes and tours of the botanic gardens in the camp. Most are included in the nightly rate, which makes this a big draw for Kenyan families looking for a mini-vacation from nearby Nairobi.

The sleeping room included a chaise lounge, a writing desk and an after-dark shock – hot water bottle under the covers. Someone’s idea of humor: the snuggly container was plain white on one side and filled with the image of a bug on the other.

There are 24 tents, as the structures are called, and one suite.

Gauzy mosquito netting is pulled up around bed posts in the day and lush green gardens show through floor-to-ceiling windows. Two double beds are covered with khaki-colored comforters and pillows. — Everything’s all about the view at Lake Elmenteita Serena Camp; beds face the patio and deep gardens with a narrow mowed path toward the lake. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Mara Serena Safari Lodge

Looking toward Tanzania and the fabled Serengeti – into which the Mara Triangle would fit eight times – helped me understand that the Great Migration does not include all the wild animals I’d come on safari to see.

It’s about the wildebeests, and some zebra and gazelles. And I saw them throughout my days in Kenya.

The lodge putting me in touch with the Serengeti houses people in side-by-side rounded buildings with fanciful yellow circles like bullseye’s around the windows. There are 74 rooms and suites.

The main reception building intends to showcase the vast plains with a two-story floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Walkways to the individual rooms are sloped and some places include steps, a bit hard to see at night.

The little sitting area beyond the beds in the Mara Serena Safari Lodge opens to a small patio. Baboons like to visit so keeping the exterior door closed is strongly advised. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Cloudless blue sky covers vast yellow plains with streaks of green. In the foreground are dense green shrubs on a hillside, two skinny trees with no branches except at the very top. The side wall and rounded roof of a large smooth brown building show at the far right. — Vast is the feeling in the Mara Triangle and that’s available at the Mara Serena Safari Lodge. This is the view from the main reception building. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Nairobi Serena Hotel

Returning to the city and its madcap traffic can feel disorienting after some nights in game drive parks – but Kenya’s vast and breaking up the drive in urban luxury is practical.

The doorman’s outfit evokes colonial era British fashion, and the African textile art displays on guest room floors honor traditional skills very much practiced today.

Works from 20 African cultures are included, so allow time in the corridors! Weaving, dying, basketry, photography, combs and carved calabashes are among the treasures.

SheBuysTravel Tip: Connect hotel art to cocktail hour discoveries throughout the country. Dawa is the name of a beloved Kenyan cocktail made of vodka, honey, ginger and lime – and many places serve it in a carved calabash.

Expect seated dinner service instead of the game park buffets, and cocktail lounges with sculpture and quiet corners for conversation.

A large fabric square with three birds in a horizontal line and three people above them is bordered by beige triangles on dark brown fabric. — Among the many works on the African Textile Tour in the Nairobi Serena Hotel is this one, named Korhogo from the Ivory Coast: hand printed on hand-woven cotton strips. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

The Nairobi Serena with its five-star rating and location near the city’s Central Park district is also a starting point for an unlikely discovery—the personality of mud structures throughout Kenya.

Credit the hotel’s textile tour with the tip about African Heritage House, which can be visited by appointment near the Nairobi National Park. Villages filled with homes made of mud and dung will have even more meaning as safari drives leave the city and wind through Kenyan countrysides.

Bold yellow sofa cushions are framed by a large window overlooking dense greenery in a hotel courtyard. Side chairs of the same yellow and also deep orange sit on either side of a round wooden table. — Elegant settings distinguish the Nairobi Serena Hotel. Photo credit: Christine Tibbetts

Getting There

Some safari travelers fly short hops from Nairobi to local landing strips and rely on lodging properties for transport and game drives. Intrepid people actually drive themselves but routes are long and rutted and in the game parks, every which way looks the same to first-timers.

My group of 11 booked a custom designed experience through Capture Kenya Expeditions with airport arrival pickup in Nairobi and door-to-door care everywhere.